Short-term lenders have proven themselves to be committed to responsible advertising, continual improvement and consumer protection. Yet some guarantor lenders and other credit providers still advertise widely, using many of the techniques that payday lenders have been told are unacceptable.

This war on American Apparel has got to stop - least of all because it's just giving the company exactly what it wants. But the ASA has got to realise that it's a complete waste of time to point a finger at one company in particular without pointing a finger at the industry as a whole.

If enough people take up the challenge, we might collectively achieve some "crowd-research" which might be useful to those who research the influence of depictions of guns and gun violence. Either way, it might stimulate much-needed debate about the casual normalisation of violence in our society.Whilst we hear much debate about whether gun violence in films or computer games can propel young men or boys (for they are almost always male) to commit mass murder or violence, we rarely hear about the effect of images on film posters.

If anything, American Apparel should be commended for its unprecedented and unpretentious level of self-awareness; after all, even brands that don't sell revealing clothing rely almost exclusively upon scantily-clad sex symbols to sell their products using 'gratuitous emphasis on the groin'. Is that sexist?